Photographer's Note

In an attempt to think up a title for this shot I looked in the dictionary for fanta and decided on fantasise "to conceive extravangant and whimisical ideas". I guess the atheist and scientist Richard Dawkins would take the view that a belief in God is nothing more than a fantasy. This is a meeting of a Christian group taking place at Princess Street Gardens.

Here the central figure, his hands linked with invisible others to the right and left of him is the main interest.

In the WS I have drawn one of my triangles over him, showing the strength of his posture and his body language. Rather than engaging with the other man on the right - who seems to be preaching at him - he seems to be casting a beady eye towards you, as you take his photograph.

The Fanta cans in the linked hands are, as you say, "fantasy", adding a touch of the bizarre to the picture.

Another of your well observed street scenes.

A nice touch of bokeh throwing the background figures out of focus, but perhaps a wider aperture would have made the effect even stronger.

Hello Bev,
A lot of hands, some connected, others not. The hands and arms and heads keep the composition very well together. The man's glance into the camera also draws the observer into the composition.
This snapshot (as I suppose it is) is a fine combination of clever observations and sheer luck ;-)
Kind regards,
Gert

Once again, Peter has excelled himself in providing you with another wonderful workshop full of triangles and other compositional themes. Just as I feel that you could in some way publish something about your Haaf Fishermen, I really do think that Peter has the potiential to publish, in some shape or form, his compositional analyses.

I have to agree with Peter about the wider aperture too. The picture isn't dead sharp but I don't think that's a focusing problem: rather I think it is due to movement artefact. You were using a long focal length (106mm) at a relatively slow shutter speed (1/80 sec.). But, f/4.5 at 1/320 sec. would have given the same exposure, would have arrested movement and would have given a more impressive background bokeh. You could also have wound up the ISO a little from 100 to maybe 200 or 400.

But all this advice you know already: like me, I'm sure you forget to alter settings and the whole thing, though very easy to work out in the cold light of day, becomes very confusing when you're faced with a situation in which you just want to capture a scene.

Altogether, though, an interesting impromptu photograph and a good note to accompany it. I really admire your ability to take shots like this. Being a coward, I unfortunately stick to trees and hills and buildings which tend not to move or run away - perhaps I need to attack somewhere like busy Edinburgh streets with my camera!